New Beginnings at Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends!  With January comes a new year and every year people are thinking about everything “NEW” like resolutions, out with old, in with new sort of things.  It seems with cold and snow winter outside; I’ve been doing a majority of my time organizing and figuring out what to toss or keep!  I’m thinking I need a new “for sale page” here on my blog!  I will need to figure that out and update later!

Today brings a new challenge for the start of the year at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog!  For the start of the year and this month’s challenge, we have the theme: NEW BEGINNINGS!  I received a Lawn Fawn gift last year and this is my first time using it for my card today:

Of course, a baby is a wonderful “new beginning”, and I was inspired to use this darling Lawn Fawn stamp set called Elephant Parade plus the Add-On.  I stamped, colored and die cut all of the images to arrange a scene over the arch opening of my card front made with the Lawn Fawn Secret Garden Window die set.

I wanted to keep the colors gender neutral, so I went with mint and yellow type colors.  I blended around the inside edge and white heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom.  I found a very old scrap of decorative paper and ran a stitched cloud background plate die over it.  (I think it’s been retired) This was the background for my window opening.  I added foam tape to the back of the mint card front and attached it to the decorative paper.  Some of the images were glued directly onto the background and some were popped up with foam tape. I’ve added this panel onto a top folding A2 white card base.

I finished out the design with some clear sparkling sequins filled with Stardust Stickles and a few white and black dots with gel pens.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired to come join us this month to enter your creation!  I look forward to seeing what you make!  Thanks so much for stopping by as I appreciate you taking the time!  Have a great day!

CHALLENGES:

  1. Simon Says Stamp – Cute Critters
  2. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes featuring a Critter
  3. Time Out – NEW
  4. CRAFT – NEW
  5. My Time to Craft – New in Your Stash (stamps/dies – first used for this card from gift given October 2023)

Whimsy Retreat Crafty Fun Results

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week! I’m so glad you’ve joined me today as I have lots of fun creations to share with you!😀

This past weekend Whimsy Stamps held a “virtual craft retreat“, so I thought I’d tag along and join in on the fun! I’m glad I did because I made several cards:

The first challenge given was a tic-tac-toe challenge. I did 3 down: birthday, heat embossing and circles for mine. Almost had 2 bingos…but didn’t quite work out! Aren’t those penguin eyeballs the best?! LOL! I needed to send out a birthday card to someone so this was great timing!

The background papers, cover die, sentiment die and the penguin stamps are all from Whimsy Stamps. I even put little ice cube confetti for my shaker card!

This card was made for the second challenge given during the event which was to use a sketch and a color palette using at least 2 of the colors given. This was my take on the sketch along with using blue, green and brown from the palette.

Most all of the items used on this design came from an older card kit from Whimsy Stamps. The stamp set is still available in the store called Enjoy the Journey. For the sentiment panel, I heat embossed a sentiment from this stamp set and then used the Slimline Postage die to cut along the edges of it.

Tihs is the card that I created for the third challenge issued which was to follow a photo prompt with words: “When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars.” The first thing that came to my mind was these cool Rainbow Papers from Whimsy Stamps and so I’ve cut a panel out with an older Whimsy Stamps die along with the image panel.

This image is called Rainy Day Smiles by Sassy Cheryl’s which is what I had actually won as a prize from the event over the weekend for one of the games..so that was cool! I wanted to be sure to use it for one of my cards! I added some raindrop crystals on a few areas of the image too.

This card was made for the fourth challenge given which was simply to create a project with one of the digital freebie images that was given during the event.

Facebook actually kicked me out of the event a few times for leaving too many comments! LOL! I was trying to participate in games and it told me that I was leaving too many comments! This was one of the cute freebie images that they gave at the event called Sloth. After all that happened…I felt that this little guy was laughing at me!🤣🤣🤣 So I wanted to laugh right along with him, and I printed him out, colored him with Copics and used the Whimsy Stamps Notched Square dies and layered him over some papers from my stash and attached to a 5″ square card base that I stenciled some clouds on along with the background of the image. I die cut some leaves from the Whimsy Stamps No-See All Seasons Tree die set to add to the top corners of the image panel.

Needless to say, I did “hang in there” right along with him!!😄

And last but not least, the fifth challenge was to make a project based on one of the video tutorials that was shown at the event. Of course, I’m always inspired by Crissy Armstrong and her coloring! This sweet little penguin called Penguin Momma was a freebie given during the event and I watched Crissy color this up and I tried my hand at her tips and tricks.

I printed out another piece of the feather background and cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle dies and added my own white feather to the design. I sponged some grey ink around the edges of the printed papers and added some yellow crystals.

  • I had such fun creating these projects and pulling out my Whimsy Stamps stash for the challenges. And now I have a few cards for sending out to people that I already have in mind! Hope you’ve enjoyed my makes today and I’ll be seeing you again soon!! (The links in this post contain affiliate links if you want to purchase anything! Thank you!!)

Challenges:

  1. Creatialicious – Anything Goes optional birthdays
  2. A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
  3. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  4. Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
  5. Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + colouring
  6. Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  7. Creative Craft Cottage – Anything Goes
  8. Creative Moments – Anything Goes
  9. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

Oh BABY! It’s Shaping Up!

Hello friends!  Hope that you’ve enjoyed a fantastic weekend whatever it was you were doing!  It’s been SO freezing over my way and I’ve been covering up with electric blankets!  Brr!

Today I’d like to share with you a couple of shaped baby cards made with a newly released and adorable Pairables set from Digi Doodle Studios along with a few other fun products from their store…

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Check out these shaped baby style cards I made with these ADORABLE little baby images from the Precious Babies Pairables set!  You may remember not too long ago the other baby card I made on THIS POST with the other new set called Little Ones Pairables.

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I wanted to share a close-up look at the coloring I’ve done with these two sweet little baby images.  I’ve used Copic markers to color them with and then just used a white gel pen for highlights on the cheeks as well as creating polka-dots for the baby girl’s dress on the yellow portions.

It’s hard to tell in the photos, but I covered the baby bottle with a glitter brush pen.

The baby girl was cut out with a circle die and layered over another die cut scallop circle from pink cardstock.  I’ve used my scissors to fussy cut out the baby boy and pop him over the design with foam dots.

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For this baby onesie shaped design, it’s actually REALLY simple to do!  It’s just a matter of measuring in, cutting and then circle die-cutting where you need to put the neck hole and leg holes is all!  It is a standard sized A2 top folding card and will easily fit inside a standard A2 sized envelope for mailing which I love!

The pink gingham paper that covers the entire front panel of this card comes from the Digi Doodle Studios Bundles of Joy Digi Paper Pack.

I’ve used the same ribbon for behind the circle panel as well as for the “ruffles” around the neck area.  I just folded up the ribbon to give it that look and attached it along the neck hole line.  I’ve attached a couple of pink ribbon bows on each side as well.

For the arm and leg hole areas, I’ve just used scallop style die cuts and sized them over the ‘openings’ and trimmed them down to fit.

I’ve taken the printed out sentiment from this same Pairables set and trimmed it down to attach along the side of the onesie, used some foam tape to pop up the baby girl image panel and added some pearls to the bottom of the onesie card.

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For this baby boy bib card, it’s just as simple!  You could use ANY circle die cut you have, but I didn’t happen to have a size that I was looking for, so this scallop circle design was cut from my Cricut machine.  It cut out the light blue and the dark blue layer behind it.  I ended up cutting out an additional dark blue panel to create my full shaped card design.  (This card measures exact size as above for regular A2 sized envelopes!)

The next step was using a circle die to die cut through all of these scallop circle layers for the neck opening on the bib.  I’ve used a score board to score a line on the top layer only (as the bottom was the back/inside of the card and didn’t need score lines.) and added the ribbon before securing the top two ends (behind the buttons) to the back of the card panel so that it opens like a regular top folding card.  (I also added an additional light blue circle panel to the inside for a message.)  The ribbon is secure and doesn’t interfere with the opening of the card.

I’ve used another circle die to cut a piece of paper from the Digi Doodle Studios Baby boy Digi Paper pack.  Obviously this was also cut out for the bib neck line as well.  I tied a bow with white twine on the buttons before gluing them down on the top ends of the bib.  I printed out the sentiment from the DDS Little Ones set and cut it out with the same circle die that I’ve used for the papers and trimmed it down into a strip and added another dark blue layer behind that to attach to the front of the bib.  I popped up the baby boy and the wood block with foam dots over the card and added some blue pearls along the side.

Thanks so much for joining me here today and I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter:

  1.  Daring Cardmakers – Something ‘NEW’
  2. Arty Divas – Anything Goes #13
  3. Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
  4. A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
  5. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  6. Cute Card Thursday – What’s New?
  7. As You Like It – Anything Goes

Welcome Little One From Digi Doodle Studios!

Hello friends!  So now that we have celebrated the Holidays and have started the year, it’s time to look at all things “new”, right?!  I have some new things to share with you today using Digi Doodle Studios products!

To me, there’s nothing better to celebrate “new” than new crafty items to play with as well as a new baby theme:

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I hope you just said “Awe!” right along with me here!  Absolutely fell in love with this precious digital Pairables set that’s BRAND NEW at Digi Doodle Studios called “Little Ones“!

I started by printing out the images and coloring them up.  I colored the giraffe, balloon, heart and baby rattle and then fussy cut them out for my card design.  There is a very soft interlocking heart grey background papers from the Digi Doodle Studios Baby Boy digital paper pack that I’ve used for the background with the frame layout.

The frame was cut out using the Whimsy Stamps Peekaboo Window 3 die from some yellow cardstock.  I then took a brand new textured embossing folder from Sizzix that I got over the Holidays and embossed it.  Love the texture of the hearts!

I used some pop dots to lift the images up a bit and added some white twine to the balloon and giraffe.  The sentiment was printed out (also from the same Pairables set) and cut out with a banner die.  Lastly, I’ve added the ribbon bow, button and some tiny heart sequins in random areas.

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Here’s a closer look at the coloring I’ve done on this sweet little giraffe.  I’ve used Copics to color all the images.  You can see how pretty that texture from the embossing is!  Lots of little hearts going on here! (Including on the giraffe in case you didn’t see that!)  🙂

You can see where I’ve added some shimmer to the balloon, tiny hearts on rattle and the tiny heart inside the yellow heart with a glitter brush pen.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my “NEW” creation for you today!  Please be sure to stop in the store and check it out along with all of the other new items available!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

  1.  Crafty Creations – Anything Goes #405
  2. Pearly Sparkles – Anything Goes
  3. Moving Along With the Times – All Things New (new digi stamps/papers/embossing folder and new baby)
  4. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Something New
  5. Craft Rocket – Something New
  6. QKR Stampede – Anything Goes #379
  7. Crafty Friends – Something New
  8. Crafter’s Castle – Anything Goes